Chapter 34
Calder
The arena hallway smells like coffee, sweat, and fresh tape.
Everything around me keeps functioning normally lately in ways that feel increasingly disconnected from whatever the hell is happening.
I walk toward media prep with my suit jacket slung over one shoulder while players move around me in waves of pregame routine, music through headphones, equipment bags dragging across concrete, coaches already irritated about something.
Routine used to settle me.
Now it mostly gives my anxiety structure.
"Media's packed tonight," Maddox says beside me while we round the corner toward the locker room. "Apparently the network's pushing some big playoff feature."
"Great."
"You say that like you enjoy interviews."
"I'd rather fight a bear."
"Reasonable."
He bumps my shoulder once before disappearing toward equipment storage.
I keep walking. My pulse already feels wrong. Not panic exactly.
Recognition.
This is the type of environment where I used to fail Arabella.
I drop onto the bench and start retaping my stick while noise echoes around me.
The old instincts still exist.
That's the uncomfortable truth.
Even now, after everything, some reflexive part of my brain still starts calculating what gets headlines, what creates distraction, what becomes narrative.
I hate it now in ways I didn't before. Because now I can actually see the emotional cost attached to those calculations.
Arabella standing beside me while I subtly distanced myself publicly without even realizing how visible it was becoming.
The careful language. The hesitation. The constant management.
I scrub a hand hard across my jaw. The terrifying thing is that fear never actually disappeared. People keep treating growth like some clean transformation where old instincts vanish entirely once you understand yourself better.
Bullshit.
I understand myself now.
That doesn't stop vulnerability from feeling dangerous the second cameras get too close.
Now I recognize the feeling for what it is instead of mistaking it for responsibility.
Coach starts talking systems near the whiteboard. I barely hear half of it. Underneath all the hockey noise and pregame preparation, one thought keeps repeating: if Arabella's name comes up tonight, this is the moment that matters.
Answering correctly doesn't fix anything.
This is the exact situation where old Calder used to emotionally reduce her automatically to regain control over himself. And after the conversation in the café, I finally understand how much damage lived inside those tiny moments.
Maddox drops onto the bench beside me while tying skates.
"You good?"
"Yeah."
He glances sideways at me.
"Liar."
Fair.
I lean forward resting my forearms against my knees while adrenaline moves restlessly through my system already.
The fear feels physical now. Tight chest. Elevated pulse.
Instinctive awareness of cameras before they even appear.
Part of me still wants control. Still wants emotional safety through careful distance.
Now the idea of reducing Arabella publicly feels worse than exposure itself.
Before, I thought fear justified the behaviour.
Now I know fear was the problem.
It didn't remove the fear. Just changed what I do with it.
The game itself helps for a while. Hockey still has the ability to narrow the world into manageable pieces temporarily, ice, timing, contact, movement, simple.
By the third period my body finally settles into familiar rhythm hard enough that thought disappears underneath instinct for stretches at a time.
Then the game ends.
And the second I step into media afterward, every old reflex comes back.
The room is hotter than it should be, too bright, too crowded. Cameras line the back wall while reporters shift forward in their seats the second I sit down at the table. I recognize the atmosphere. Not hostile.
Interested.
Which honestly used to scare me more.
The PR rep beside the cameras starts with normal questions first, playoffs, conditioning, team adjustments, and I answer automatically. Controlled. Professional.
Then somebody near the centre raises a hand.
"Calder, there's obviously been a lot of crossover media attention recently because of Arabella Vale's Worlds success. Has that attention been difficult to navigate during playoffs?"
There it is.
The exact moment.
My entire body reacts before thought catches up.
Chest tightening. Pulse shifting. Instinctive awareness of every camera suddenly pointed directly at me.
For months, every time Arabella entered public conversation beside hockey, this exact pressure would hit me, control the narrative, reduce exposure, contain vulnerability before it expands.
I can physically feel the old response trying to activate underneath my skin.
Distance yourself.
Keep it vague.
Make it manageable.
Some part of me still wants to do it. I'm not ashamed of Arabella. Vulnerability still spikes through my nervous system the second attention sharpens around us publicly.
The old instincts remain physically alive inside me.
I think suddenly of Arabella sitting across from me in the café saying:
"You can't love me privately and erase me publicly every time things get difficult."
I grip the edge of the table once beneath the cameras where nobody can see it.
The real choice is not do I feel fear? Obviously I do.
The choice is what happens to Arabella because of it?
I recognize the moment. I choose differently.
The silence stretches just long enough for everyone in the room to notice it. Cameras fixed on me. Reporters waiting. The PR rep beside the wall already tense enough that I can practically feel it.
I can almost hear the old responses lining themselves up in my head even now: we keep our private lives separate / it's been a busy season / staying focused on hockey. Emotionally clean answers. Technically true. Designed mostly to reduce vulnerability until I could breathe normally again.
I exhale once slowly through my nose.
Then answer.
"No," I say.
My voice sounds rougher than usual in the sudden quiet room.
"Arabella wasn't a distraction."
I hear the shift. Not externally.
Inside me.
Because I used her name naturally. Without hesitation. Without trying to soften emotional proximity before anyone else could see it clearly.
The room goes stiller.
I keep going before old instincts can interfere.
"She's one of the most disciplined people I've ever met. Watching what she did at Worlds honestly probably helped me more than anything."
No distancing language. No reduction.
Just truth.
Another reporter leans forward slightly.
"So the public attention surrounding the relationship never affected performance?"
The fear still exists. That's the strangest part. Growth doesn't mean emotional exposure suddenly feels easy.
It means I stop punishing Arabella for the fact it scares me.
I rest my forearms lightly against the table.
"The pressure affected me," I admit.
A few reporters glance up sharply. The openness inside the statement catches their attention more than the words themselves.
"But that wasn't because of her. It was because I handled parts of it badly."
The silence afterward feels enormous. No blame shifting. No framing her as complication. No careful implication that loving her interfered with hockey somehow.
Just accountability.
"So you don't see the relationship as something that conflicted with your career?"
"No," I say immediately.
Simple. Clear. Human.
The word settles heavily into the room. Apparently everyone expected complexity where the real answer was straightforward: I loved her. I got scared. I hurt her because of it.
None of that made her the problem.
Another reporter asks carefully:
"So you're saying the issue was never Arabella Vale herself, but how you handled the visibility around the relationship?"
My pulse kicks hard once against my ribs.
Every instinct wants control back. The familiarity of the feeling almost knocks the air out of me.
Because this is exactly what used to happen, exposure would spike through my nervous system and suddenly I'd start managing emotion instead of participating in it honestly.
"Yes," I answer.
Simple. Steady. No retreat.
The room goes quiet again. Almost surprised.
"Do you regret how public pressure affected the relationship?"
Vulnerability still feels physical. That part hasn't changed. I think of Arabella in the café telling me she kept making herself smaller because she could feel me pulling away every time things became publicly uncomfortable.
The memory steadies me harder than self-protection does now.
"Yes," I say quietly.
The honesty leaves me feeling flayed open. No control left in the narrative anymore. No emotional distancing. No careful compartmentalization. No hiding behind hockey language until everyone politely stops asking questions. Just truth sitting exposed in front of cameras.
My chest feels tight enough to bruise internally. Still, I stay.
That's the difference.
"Have you spoken to her recently?"
The question punches straight through me. Suddenly Arabella feels vividly real inside the room. Not abstract relationship discourse. Not media crossover.
Her.
Standing outside the café in the rain looking at me with love and anger existing simultaneously in her expression.
My throat tightens.
"Yes," I say carefully.
No elaboration follows. Not because I'm hiding her. Because this part belongs to her too. That distinction matters now.
The reporters keep pressing after that. Not aggressively. Curiously. Meanwhile every second inside the room feels physically louder than the last. Exposure. Visibility. Lack of control. All the things I used to fear most still scrape painfully across my nervous system.
Only now something else exists beside the fear.
Clarity.
I made her carry the weight of my fear for me.
The realization burns.